


Dark Heart (Poem/Prose Fic)

by DefiantCandle17



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 04:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21207221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefiantCandle17/pseuds/DefiantCandle17
Summary: A poem/prose fic of Kylo Ren's fall and redemption. AU divergence from Last Jedi.Contains dark references and allusions to depression and mental illness.Something I did in one night to get back in the swing of things, and in celebration of the Rise of Skywalker coming out soon.





	Dark Heart (Poem/Prose Fic)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic features references to Matthew Stover's novel adaptation of Revenge of the Sith. It is a phenomenal book which kick-started my love of writing fantasy and will continue to be a huge influence for years to come.
> 
> Also references to Star Wars Theory's Vader: Shards of the Past Fanfilm!  
And Knights of the Old Republic and Sith Lords.
> 
> Very dark and depressing from the outset but ends on a positive note.

Kylo Ren stood. Alone, in the darkness.

He breathed in the cool, corrosive scent of its fumes, and he exhaled the smoke that came from the burning furnace in his heart.

Vader had a furnace. Snoke had told him. It burned inside him, and around its chamber, a dragon coiled. It reared up its head and told him dark things. Terrible things. Wondrous things.

It told him that everything dies. That in the end even stars burn out.

Hold not to life, Ben of Solo, heir of Vader. Cling not to its hopes, its follies, its joys, its sweetness. All dies. All fades. All suffers. All degrades, cools, quietens down to nothing.

But light the furnace and burn it brightly with hate, fuel it with the coals of hatred, choke the air with the tightening of your anger, your vengeance ready to choke even the suns, and diminish their flames.

And even you will live forever. Even you will not die. You will be immortal, and reach the highest level of power you can attain. The ancient mysteries, and the secrets to power, to control, to godhood itself…will be yours. 

Vader feared loss, Snoke explained to him, in his throne room, draped in reds and silver, his Praetorians red sentinels in armour and cortosis blades, whip and spear.

He feared to let go of everything he feared to lose, and it destroyed him. He feared the death of his son, and betrayed the dark side when he cast down the Emperor.

In his heart, he cooled the furnace with frail hope, and desperate love. A delusional boy behind a mask. An old cripple in the body of a dark knight. A worm pretending to be a dragon.

Are you but a boy in a mask, Snoke had asked him. Or will you rise up to be more? My worthy apprentice…Yours is the blood of butcherers and murderers. Nobility masks your dragon spirit, that coils in your heart as well, but your grandfather was the vergence of the force, who rose to dominate and rule the galaxy.

But where he failed and weakened his spirit by redemption, you shall not.

You will go out into the galaxy in my name. You will serve as my apprentice. My right hand and fist.

You will kill. You will slaughter. You will bring your dark art to bear on the weak and the cowards. You with crusader saber burning bright, the dividing light of red that will burn through lies, deception, weakness and hope. Break hope and sow despair. You are the heir of Darth Vader, and the master of the Knights of Ren, my agents of shadow.

What, I ask, are you, Ben of Han Solo. What are you if not raised singularly, chosen by me, as Sidious chose Vader? What is your purpose? What is your plight. What is the destiny that you must join to fulfil your destiny. What is the legacy you follow, and the legacy you will leave behind. What defines all that you are…and all that you ever will be.

And Kylo of the Knights of Ren did speak, and the words to him were truth. Truth since his dreams dark and poisoned, tainted and maddening, twisting his soul, wrenching apart his mind, biting, slicing, piercing talon deep, bloody ripped and torn bleeding. What was he? What was he!

I am the Dark Side.

So was his reply.

And that was what Kylo Ren was.

The corpse of Ben Solo, broken and afraid, now dead and dashed, lay away, buried deep. It would never wake again. Never be seen or spoken of again.

Because Kylo was the dark side.

And that was all he would ever be.

* * *

What are you, Ben?

He remembers Uncle Luke.

Kind and nurturing. A smile on his bearded face. Strong and wily. Surly and saccharine.

I ask you. What are you?

I don’t know. Is his wobbly reply. He is a gangly teenager again. His robes don’t fit, and he’s taller than the other students. Brown robes overlay a white tunic underneath.

My dreams scare me, and I feel alone everyday.

I’m nothing. I’m not you, Master Luke. Always wise and confident. Years of experience in battle and war, and yet no darkness lurks in your heart.

I’m not like Mother, who is the bravest person I know. I’m not eloquent or wise or skilful or diplomatic.

I’m not like Father, who is smart and witty, who can talk his way out of any fight. Who is thick skinned, and is charming, and cocky and confident.

I’m nothing. I have no place. I do not fit.

I am a piece that doesn’t fit, and will always have no place. I’m a burden…and I always will be.

Ben…His uncle speaks. Soft and fatherly in his own way. You belong more than you realise. I struggled with doubt and darkness every day. And when I learned the truth of my family, I struggled even more so.

Everyone struggles with darkness. Everyone struggles with the worst of themselves.

But it is our resistance and our actions that defines who we are. Not our worst selves.

You have greatness in you. Love and goodness and a purpose. You will always have us, who love you

And Ben wanted so hard to believe the kind words of one of his many role-models. Luke the Warrior. Leia the Hero. Han the Rogue. Lando the Scoundrel. Chewbacca the Strong. All of them great. All of them worthy. All of them with a place, and a plan, and a destiny, and a purpose.

But Snoke whispers evil things into his mind, and twists everything good and taints them, so sinisterly and hateful does he that anything of light twists itself into an amorphous, throbbing, stabbing headache.

It makes him ill to try and hope.

He tries to remember happiness and is drowned in darkness.

He is sick. He has been sick for as long as he can remember.

He will always be sick.

And in the black sea of his mind where not even he could swim, all he can do is drown.

* * *

And Snoke sinks his talons deeper into his skull.

The darkness understands, he tells him.

And he believes him.

* * *

What are you Ben?

Mother.

Her voice, clear and harmonic. Tender and sweet. How is he of her blood? How is he like her? What does he, weedy and foolish and clumsy have compared to her?

How is he her son? How is he of her blood?

Leia the princess, the general, the war hero.

The daughter of Padme. Senator. Spy. Queen.

He has not the glib tongue or the smooth charisma, the charm needed to put forth, to sell solutions. To effortlessly give his heart and mind to the salvation of others. To shoulder and share their responsibilities.

He has not the charisma to be a politician. He has not the emotional fortitude, to lie and twist words like a politician. He offended too easily, stumbled on his words.

Faltered where he should have been brave.

He tried and he failed. What else had he to offer?

You are special to me, Mother had told him, because you are my son. You are my firstborn, and my sweetest gift to myself and to this universe. You are everything to me, and I adore you. If you become a jedi, or a politician, or whoever you want to be, I know it will be goodness that you have to offer to the universe.

You are gifted.

A lie.

Handsome.

A lie.

A brave man.

A lie.

And everything your father and uncle could hope for you to be.

Lies, lies, lies!

You must do as your uncle does, and your father on occasion, and put your heart and mind to helping others.

Be yourself. Be open to the force and to the wonders your life has to offer. Help the galaxy and it will help you.

A crueller lie. The worst one of them all.

* * *

Turn your sight inwardly, and think only of yourself. Snoke had told him.

Yourself and your darkness are all you ever have.

You gave all you had. You tried.

And the galaxy spat on you and hurt you in return.

They do not understand you like I do.

And they never will.

They will never comprehend the might of darkness, that is all that you are.

And all you ever will be.

Hold to it.

Harken to it.

And you will have the temerity to embrace your dark path set before you.

* * *

What are you Ben?

Father

He’s nowhere near as handsome as him.

He hasn’t been on as many adventures, hasn’t had the life experience. Doesn’t have the charm. The pluck. The savviness and the swashbuckle. The bravado.

He’s too awkward. Too rule-driven, too unsure. Too hesitant and timid.

He is anger and confusion and ruthlessness and a kriffing joke of a man compared to his father and Father is just…

He doesn’t understand.

Doesn’t understand how it is to raise a force-sensitive child.

How it is to understand the dreams, the emotions, the fear, the uncertainty, the turbulent nature of being so aware, so sensitive, so attuned and yet so miserably out of place all at once that came with the gift and the curse of his powers.

Or maybe that was just him.

Father was different.

He knew blasters and the difference between a quick-draw and death.

He knew smuggling. Crime. Stealing. Money. Adventure. Risk. Dicing with death as he diced with the seedy and the scum of the universe.

But he never understood Ben or his nightmares at all.

And misunderstanding turned to resentment. The rift seemed all but inevitable.

Chewbacca’s hugs help. He’s a living blanket of fur and warmth and he’s fallen asleep in the Wookiee’s arms more times than he can count as he strokes his hair. Wookiees are unrivalled in their affection and their tenderness.

Father’s head rubs when Ben does something good and fixes a part of the Falcon he didn’t realise was damaged to begin with help. They mend at the frayed bond in tiny ways. Tiny hands linking to tiny holds.

But he is out of place and more a distraction than his father’s son.

He makes mistakes that nearly got them killed.

He steps forward and speaks his mind when he should have kept his mouth shut.

He gets himself into situations that he could never talk his way out of.

Nothing in the empty words of assurances Father gives him do anything to salve the wounds to his pride. Especially as he smiles less. Forgives less. Grumbles more.

When was it that he decided that he hated his father?

…

…

…

Maybe it was the time he told him to behave like a real man. When he got upset over...he couldn't remember now. He hated the whole memory too much to remember the insipid details.

Ben-that-was hated his father after that day. Nursed it and reared it and locked it up tight inside his mind to grow and coil in resentment.

It joined the list of tirades he would throw at himself every night. He wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t smart enough. He wasn’t handsome enough. He wasn’t brave enough. He wasn’t noble enough.

He was a coward. A snivelling, sensitive, quivering wretch. He was nothing and he knew it. Nothing but an overgrown teenager who quibbled and faltered and flailed and tripped and cringed.

He had a lightsaber and was poor with it. A brute with a lazer sword.

He had the force and was a club-handed fool with a scalpel. All he could do was hurt and break with it.

He was the dark side’s executor long before he realised it.

It just took Snoke and him burning down the Jedi Temple for him to realise it.

The Knights of Ren come.

Luke is buried in the ruin of his hut.

He seals the rest in the temple.

And tells the knights to kill the survivors who run out.

He simply stares as the temple collapses and burns, as the others inside scream for their lives.

And he burns with them.

Burns still.

Burns forever.

As Vader did.

The rest just…simply fell into place not long after.

Like the death mask he slips onto his head to seal his face away from world.

Ben falls and Kylo Ren is born.

* * *

But Ben is not dead.

He feels the pull to the light, a sickening, macabre, sadistic twist of fate to have it begging at his feet, when Snoke tells him of the awakening, and the droid in the hands of his father.

Snoke tells him he must raise his foot and stomp it into the ground before it can sink its fangs into his ankle.

He must face his final test.

And put an end to all ties.

Father comes one day. The light of the sun haloes him in light and white.

Take off that mask…

You don’t need it.

**What do you think you’ll see if I do?**

The face of my son.

Sunward he came, to save his son, in his cave of darkness.

How poetic.

The scavenger and escaped prisoner, Rey from which the ray of light pierced, intrusive into the dark heart of the Starkiller, his heart, machine and red and steel, watches from above, anxious and afraid.

He had her chained and helpless in his dungeon. He will chain her again.

But first…

Father comes to him and tells him to come home.

Mother misses him.

_I am the dark side_

Chewie misses him.

_I am the dark side._

He misses him.

_I am the dark side._

Snoke is manipulating him. Using him for his power.

He will be cast aside and crushed when he is done with him.

Below their feet, the bridge they stood, falling to darkness deep below. Heart of the dark star, the planet gutted and repurposed, made into the ultimate weapon.

Like him.

It hungered for tribute.

And so ahead before him as his old father walked towards him, his final test lay ahead.

He is ready.

He drags Ben to the front and slips on his mask.

Plays the act of the scared little boy that Father would drop everything and come to the aid for, no matter when or how.

Draw him in close.

I am being torn apart.

I want to be free of this pain.

I know what I have to do but I don’t have the strength to do it.

_Will you help me?_

_Will you help me father?_

_Will you help me dad?_

_I love you dad. Will you help me?_

_That’s enough- that’s enough_

He un-belts his weapon. Holds it out for his father to hold.

A hydrospanner to fix.

A tablet with a question he doesn’t understand.

A problem that only Father’s hand could fix.

_Good. Let his pain bleed through. Let him draw close. Let him lower his guard._

And at his hand clutching the lightsaber, he pulls gently to take it from him.

But at light snuffed, the starkiller leeching life from the sun, all light darkened.

And only Kylo Ren remained.

The shadow-ruse concluded, his mind resolute.

His dark deed now, with blade anchored in his hand, ready to be done.

His grip tightened.

Kylo turns the saber and the blade emitter points to Ben’s father’s chest.

His crackling saber snarls to life and lances through the old man’s heart. Burning heart and spearing into chest and soul.

He hears the screams.

He hears the galaxy cry out in horror at his terrible deed.

He feels it.

Chewie howls like a maddened dog.

The girl is screaming.

Mother feels it and collapses in a chair.

Snoke feels it and speaks to him. His dark master. His true father.

The only one who ever understood.

Well done.

Ben’s father’s hand caresses his face.

There’s shock and betrayal and…sadness on his old wrinkled face.

His hand slips, a loving touch for the son who died ages ago.

And he falls away.

With a sigh he tumbles into the yawning dark mists bellow.

And Kylo Ren…

Kylo Ren…

Kylo Ren…

…does everything he can to keep Ben quiet and smothered, screaming in grief and pain at the raw psychological, dawning, unalterable realisation, inescapable reality crushing in, caving in, surrounding him, entrapping him, enclosing him, screaming into his ear-

YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED FATHER! WHAT DID YOU DO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED HIM YOU KILLED HIM-

Chewbacca’s bowcaster bolt hitting, set to low power of course otherwise it would have torn him in two, was almost a relief.

The pain he feels as he uses the force to contain the raw kinetic force of the bolt punching into his torso, blood boiling and cauterising then bleeding again, is easier to maintain.

The scream Ben Solo would have forced out of his throat would have been most unbecoming.

* * *

The scars.

The duels with the stormtrooper turned traitor.

With the girl.

He retreats, his face split by the Skywalker blade.

He doesn’t care about teaching her.

He doesn’t care about Snoke.

Or Vader.

Or Luke.

Or any of it.

He is free of the past and its ensnaring tendrils.

Ben Solo was dead and gone.

* * *

Snoke senses his removal.

His detachment.

He revels in it, this loss of self, the monster remaining, the dragon and the furnace

The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins, he tells him.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t respond.

He forgoes his mask.

Snoke is troubled.

He hobbles out of his chair and speaks.

When I found you. I saw what all masters lived to see. Raw, untamed power, and beyond that, something truly special.

He gestures to him with his withered hand, standing over him in gold robe resplendid.

The potential of your bloodline.

A new…Vader…

But he falters, and his face changes. Where fatherly pride was placed only derisive pity, shame, remained.

But now, I fear, I was mistaken. You have too much…

…of your father’s heart in you…

Young Solo…

His name conjures up his spirit and his shocked face before he falls away, and he throws himself at his dark vow, given in blood and soul to the undead Sith before him

I killed Han Solo.

I didn’t hesitate.

Snoke whirls and spits back down at him.

And look at you! The deed split your spirit to the bone.

You were unbalanced.

Bested by a girl who had never held a lightsaber!

You failed!

Kylo lunges forth and brings his sabre to bear, hefting burning blade and swinging it down towards his chest.

Snoke, immortal of course, the master of the dark side, of course, catches the blade in his hand.

His eyes red and yellow burn into him and, under the choking weight of the dark side in his heart, Kylo sags to his knees.

The grip crushes his heart, cuts something deep. The dark side holds him in its jaws and Kylo pales and bleeds.

The blade wrenched from his hand, Kylo looks up to see his own blade pointed down at him.

Skywalker lives! Snoke roars, unimpressed.

The seed of the jedi lives.

The blade crackles to his chin, forcing him to lift his head. One flick of his wrist and his head would be taken.

I thought you…would be the one to snuff it out.

Snoke speaks with disappointment.

But alas…

The blade diminishes, and Snoke tosses it aside for him to pick up like a snipe-hound with a bone.

He turns and walks away.

You are no Vader…

He sits on his throne and leers at him coldly. Exhaustion…the weight of impatience, sets into his undead, ripped, disfigured face.

Just a child…in a mask…

* * *

The light wounds him.

The dark sickens him.

He leaves.

He retreats.

* * *

He hides.

Hux is belliegerent as he chases him through comms, red-faced and furious as his messages repeat the same message again and again.

Skywalker has been found. Skywalker has joined the Resistance and General Leia.

Skywalker has trained the girl.

The girl has become a Jedi Knight.

The Resistance is winning.

The Rebellion is winning.

Snoke is on the run.

When Hux comes to him on Morriband, even he is brought to his knees before the un-life and the mere aura of his shadow before him.

Because Kylo Ren decided to make a choice to join fully to the Dark Side.

He consoled the dark spirits of the sith. He pried the secrets of the holocrons.

He butchered two terrentateks and hsisses and swarms of shyracks and plundered the tombs.

Lightning blasts from his hand and scorches a Tuk’ata, a goat like scaled sith hound, stopping it from tearing off Hux’s head.

Han Solo was Snoke’s final test for him.

But now the destruction of the Resistance would be his.

* * *

He comes to Snoke.

His ship is battered and damaged and bleeding from a thousand wounds, and is held together by Snoke and his knights of Ren alone.

He kneels before the dark master.

Forgiveness comes easy for him, despite his absence.

Because the shadow was all he ever had. It forgave him, it understood. And it gathered him unto himself.

And the final truth was laid bare to him.

As Vader deceived himself, so too did Kylo.

There was no dragon. No Kylo.

Only Ben.

Ben killed Han Solo and broke his mother’s heart.

Ben burned the Jedi and had his Knights of Ren butcher the survivors with axe and sword before his eyes.

Stripped away of all delusion, attachment and hopes, of delusion the self was all the sith aspirant ever had.

And Ben accepted it.

And with that he had no longer, anything left to lose.

And so he slipped on the moniker of Kylo and placed his death helm on his head once more.

He was ready.

The Knights of Ren bring forth their crossguard sabers in salute to their master.

And Snoke laughs maniacally and coughs feebly into his hand, wiping snot and blood into his frayed, ripped and blaster stained golden robe.

All that glitters…

The old man’s time would come…

* * *

But then he meets Rey. She leaps from above in white flowing sleeveless robes, whirling around like wings and lands, and ignites the skywalker blade in a flourish about her, strong and defiant.

And he realises that he was never ready to begin with.

When she draws out the Skywalker blade and readies it in a fluid Soresu movement, and mixed with Ataru and Shi-Cho, athleticism, grit, mastery and acrobatic grace that makes his heart beat faster at the sight, Ben realises that he could not be ready to even begin with.

He has Djem So and Juyo. Niman at a stretch. Aggression, Fury and Balance.

They would not be enough.

And their clashing of darkness rising, and light to meet it, resound across the surface of the second Death Star, and the watery graveyard of Sheev Palpatine’s, Darth Sidious’s fleet.

Water falls around them as they dance about each other. Thrumming vibrant sky blue shining and pure clashes against crackling, spitting, hellish red.

And she grows more enrapturing, more beautiful with every strike and block and dance.

Her strike slices his death mask clean off his head, bouncing and smoking off his head and into the tumbling waters bellow.

He stumbles at her initiative and realises that he cannot win.

Grace against Strength. Brute force against speed.

Her tenacity pushed him back, and when he tried to dominate her with a form five offensive, to overload her defences, Rey simply deflects them, and harnesses her anger into her passion and into her defence and counter-defence and simply…

…pushed through it.

Kylo strikes so hard they fall through the surface and down into the emperor’s throne room.

In the moments when they recover, Kylo holds nothing back.

He lifts his hand and seizes her in his force choke.

Lifting her up, he would teach the luck-blessed jedi witch to meddle with his affairs.

His lighting surged forth and scorched her, and her so untouchable was struck and scarred by the lightning of the sith.

And Kylo Ren’s soul darkened further at the height of his own success. He was more than Vader ever could be, more than Snoke. More than Palpatine.

Here in the shattered throne room, he would kill his rival and ascend to the seat of power. And rule over all as the conqueror he was meant to be.

Rey falls and sinks to her knees.

And Kylo’s soul hungers for the kill.

Calling Rey’s blade to his left hand, he lowers and crosses them at her neck, trapping her still electrocuted form against the wall, the blade burning into the durasteel wall at both sides of her neck.

But the words that pierced his armour so came from her lips, and her brunette hair undone sways in the wind.

Her lips parted to reveal gritted teeth, and her muscular arms and athletic form, dwarfed by his cloaked form, at his mercy, at his power.

Death would come at the simple scissoring of the blades.

But it didn’t.

Because Rey had spoken.

Spoken the words that no doubt Skywalker, in desperate frail, elderly hope, begged her to speak.

What are you Ben?

…

…

…

Rey.

...

I’m a monster.

He’s meant to declare it proudly, because that is all he ever was, and ever will be.

But he is so dead inside that he can only mutter it.

I am the dark side.

I am the heir apparent of Darth Vader.

Son of Darkness.

I watched planets burn.

I put rebels to the sword.

I murdered the innocent. Cut them down like flies and waded over corpses for the glory of the First Order.

I killed my own father. I watched the light fade from his eyes as he fell away.

I am a monster.

You said so yourself.

But what you say cannot harm me because I know what I am.

I am the dark side.

I am Sith.

I have ascended and become more powerful than any jedi. Any sith.

This is my destiny.

My path.

Her hazel eyes fill with tears.

And she has the audacity to say.

I don’t believe you.

And Ben-NO! Kylo…Kylo Ren is stunned at this.

_You didn’t know I was Han’s son. You didn’t think someone so old and cantankerous and rugged with a heart of gold could give unto the galaxy something as monstrous as me._

And he speaks to remind her, simple peasant girl as she was, of who held his burning fangs to her throat.

I trapped you. I pierced you. Entered your mind and held you unmercifully as my prisoner.

I killed my father. I killed hundreds in the name of Snoke. In the name of the Dark Side.

And now I will kill you.

Because I am the Dark Side, and the Dark Side always wins.

But she stands, and Ben is forced to lift the sabers up and let her come to her feet. She was supposed to accept her fate humbly and with dignity.

She lifts her hands and repeats.

I don’t believe you.

Her hands touch the blades and gently press them away.

The force shields her hands and Kylo can only watch her part the blades in awe.

You are not the Dark Side, Ben.

She tries to tell him

The dark side is not you. It is evil, and everywhere, but it is not you.

At the twitch of her fingers, sabres diminish and hiss silent. They pull out of his hands and into hers.

She throws them aside.

Luke told me everything.

She tells him, advancing towards him

About how you were told all your life that you only ever amounted to what you had to offer to the service of evil.

That you think you never mattered more than what you could give to the galaxy by hurting it for how it hurt you.

Alone and misunderstood.

I feel your pain. And I mourn for your life so lost to darkness...

I am drawn to you like a moth to the flame.

You suffer and have suffered since you were a child.

You have hurt for so long.

What mercy have you to give? Ben can only stammer out.

What mercy does the Jedi and the resistance have for one who killed his own father. Who murdered his own fellow students? Who paved the way for the bloody conquest of the First Order?

Wherefore is your mercy? I will have no use for it!

So speaks Kylo of the Knights of Ren.

I learned of you and who you were, from Luke and your mother.

Rey speaks, and Kylo now feels fear again.

I learned of your suffering and how you struggled to find your place, before you fell in to Snoke’s hands.

I know that you are being something you are not.

Something you never were to begin with.

She is now close enough for him to smell the brine and the sweat dripping from her, and Kylo…Ben…rises up in place of the mask, being rent and slain by her burning blade.

You need a teacher… She tells him.

And someone to help you come back to the light.

The light has wanted you, Ben.

Rey speaks, and her bandaged hand is rising up and touching his scarred face.

It has wanted you the moment it learned of the good still inside you.

She speaks softly, her tenderness plucking the strings of his corroded heart.

And sensing her true meaning, Ben could only spitefully reply.

The light loves a delusion. A shadow of a ghost of something that never was and never will be.

The dark is all I am, and all I ever will be.

Nothing else I have, nothing else I have to give…matters.

The Light is a fool.

His hand lifts and bats away her caring hand.

Beautiful and bright, but foolish.

But her kind words make facing her, the thought of killing her difficult.

It hurts. It begins to hurt all over.

It has never stopped hurting.

And so he turns away, and fatigue and loathing come upon him, and he drops to his knees.

Strike me down. Kylo begs.

You cannot save me.

It is too late.

I am the Dark Side, all I ever am, and all I ever will be, will be the sum of my evil.

I am at peace with this, and will die as such.

No you are not! Rey cries out.

She runs to him and clutches his face in her hands.

I came to save you! To bring you out of the hell you are in!

She vowed, and her eyes were the promise of life and the sun and hope and peace and something different, something brewing inside, alive and yearning for him.

You hurt and hurt others in turn, but that is not you.

It is all that I am. All that I am good at! He yells back and pushes her away. He calls his burning blade to hand and holds it aloft.

  
He would go forth in his crusade. He would kill in the name of the dark side.

He would finish what Vader started.

But Rey lunges forth and Kylo brings his blade down-

Too late.

Rey has wrapped her arms around him, and her smaller form is strong and crushing in its grip. Her buns are in his nose, and she smells of the earth and the wet and the sky.

Her head is on his heart, her ear pressed against it, beating furiously.

Ben…

You can’t save me. Ben begs of her.

Nothing can.

The darkness…

It always wins.

If strong enough…Rey states.

Yes…it can from time to time win…

But it will always lose in the war…

Because at its core lies a weakness.

One lone candle alone can hold it back.

What candle? He bitterly spits.

What nonsense do you spout, Jedi fool?

The darkness always wins.

And in the end, even stars burn out…

His voice breaks with a sob, and the darkness’s claim to his heart became truly known to him.

For it had slain hope, and made him trample it to ruin under his feet.

Rey’s hug tightens, and her hair brushes his face as she looks up at him.

Love…She speaks, and her face is pleading, weeping and in pain.

For him.

Love is more than a candle.

She explains.

Love can ignite the stars.

And she leans up on her toes and kisses him.

Her lips, soft and small and gentle against his, gliding across his, dumb and slow to respond yet bathed in angelic bliss.

His hand drops his sabre and it clatters to the floor as Kylo holds Rey in his arms and kisses her back, cupping her face in his gloved hands, as her hands clutch at his robe to anchor herself, to stop herself swooning at the touch.

Ben… her soft call of his name…his name…his name on her lips and her voice so lovingly spoken…

And Ben rose from the grave and in Kylo’s warrior form, birthed anew and kissed Rey fully as himself, wholly as himself, and all the pain he had felt, slipped away into the cold nothingness.

Only the bright shining star of his heart remained.

Lit aflame by forgiving love, deep and sincere for him.

And burning still, healing at the touch, for the scavenger who became a jedi knight.

In their union they were whole, and had darkness not interrupted them, they would have held and become as one if time allowed it.

But laughter villainous sounds about the chamber, echoing around them, and sabres found the hands of the warriors as they break apart, regretfully so to join battle with their new and unknown foe.

The shade of darkness, the Emperor reborn, now sits in his throne

Your coming together, Sidious snarls through blackened cracked teeth and red and yellow eyes.

Will be your undoing!

Rey stood forth and brandished her blade burning bright before the demon of the sith. The devil and the shadow

I no longer fear you! Rey spoke in triumph and resolve.

For I have found and saved the man I love.

And will no longer face you alone!

And Ben swung his sword at the ready, and levelled it at the Sith Lord.

I am no longer afraid. Ben spoke.

Because now…

I have my own soul to save…

And a soul of someone I love to protect.

And as they ran forth and leapt at the spectral sith, and his hands cast lightning and red blades from his wrists.

He roared spinning from his throne and cast his sith darkness upon them. Blades of sky and fire gleamed in the darkness, and they launched themselves, tethered in heart and soul, towards their fiendish foe.

* * *

And as for the end long after that terrible day.

When light rose again to cast down dark and hew its evil grip from the heart of the galaxy…

Ben and Rey watched the twin sunset of Atch-To and embraced, as Luke and Leia looked on with happiness on their tear-streaked faces…

And Chewbacca and R2 played with Ben and Rey’s three toddling children, as the night gave way, to a brand new dawn.

And Ben felt peace in his heart for the first time, and for the rest of his life in healing and loving others, and loving himself, in the arms of the Jedi and his wife whom he adored.

Ben Solo stood in the Light. And he was no longer alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Leave Kudos and a comment if you liked it!


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